RAYMOND — You’re never too old to go back to school, the Williams family believes.

“Getting our college degrees has been a dream come true for my husband and me,” said Trina Williams, 46, who will graduate in May from Hinds Community College. Her husband, Robert Williams, 55, received his degree from Hinds in December.

“People look at you funny when you say you are a student at 46 or 55, but I’m not ashamed of it,” said Trina Williams. “It’s kind of funny to be in class with 18- to-20-year-olds. When we tell stories in class, mine are totally different from theirs. I enjoy going to school.”

Both Trina and Robert Williams were named to the Phi Theta Kappa academic honor society for junior colleges and plan to continue on to universities.

Robert Williams graduated magna cum laude from the Raymond campus, earning his degree in architectural drafting and design. He is employed as a computer draftsman at MMI Industries in Crystal Springs.

Trina has been awarded Hinds’ 3E Award — Emphasis on Excellence and Enrichment — one of the highest student achievement awards given by the school. She also has been named to Who’s Who Among American Community College Students and selected to the Phi Theta Kappa All Mississippi Academic Team. Of 1,500 nominations received statewide, just two students are chosen to represent each campus of the state’s 15 community colleges each year.

Trina Williams will receive her associate’s degree in early childhood education on May 11 — the same day the couple’s 24-year-old daughter, Stacey, graduates from the University of Southern Mississippi. It would not have been a tough choice — “I’d rather be there for her,” Trina said — but she’s hoping to make both ceremonies that day.

“I’ll be there to watch her walk at 10 a.m. and then I’ll try to get back to Raymond in time to walk at 2,” said Trina. “She’s going to try to follow me. I told her I’d rather be there to watch her and she said she’d rather be here to watch me. Hopefully, we can both do it.”

“I am really proud of them,” said Stacey Williams, reached by phone in Hattiesburg. “Especially my mom. She took some college classes when I was in high school, but she never really thought she could do it. She never thought she was smart enough. Now she’s getting so many awards, I’m just so proud of her. I tell all my friends.”

Robert and Trina Williams also are co-owners of Woods of Williams Custom Cabinet Company LLC of Raymond, and their home is filled with objects they have crafted — hutches and chests, tables, kitchen cabinets, even the front door.

In addition to Stacey, they have a daughter, Natasha, 29, who runs a group home for 16- to 18-year-old boys in California and — of course — has a bachelor’s in sociology from California State College at Dominguez.

Like their parents, both girls attended community colleges, then universities.

“We believe in it, because you get an idea of what you want to do,” said Trina Williams. The difference? The girls started at a much younger age.

Robert Williams was raised in Jackson, where he attended Smith Robertson Elementary School, the first public school built for African-Americans in Jackson. It now houses a museum and cultural center dedicated to preserving black history and cultural expression in the state.

He and his brother grew up in a home headed by a single mother who worked as a maid for a food critic in the Fondren area.

“You know the movie, ‘The Help’?” Trina Williams asked. “She lived it. But he would bring home recipes people had sent in to him, and she would make them. She was an amazing cook.”

After graduating from high school, Robert worked as a laborer doing odd jobs, then in 1980 joined the Navy, was trained as a machinist and assigned to bases in San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

While stationed in San Diego he met Trina, a native of Long Beach, Calif., whose mother also was a single parent for a number of years before remarrying.

“I met Robert when I was 18 years old,” Trina said. “I stayed home with the girls and was a licensed child care provider on the base in San Diego.”

The family was stationed in Hawaii in 1991, and Trina worked for the US. Department of Agriculture food program, visiting and supervising child care facilities who were part of the agency’s meal program. She worked around her daughters’ schedules.

Robert retired from the Navy in 2000, and they settled for a time near Trina’s folks in California, but eventually he moved his family back to his home state, purchasing a home in Raymond on a lot big enough for a wood shop.

“My plan was to start a furniture company,” he said. Among their customers was the Hinds Raymond campus — they re-faced a stage, adding mahogany wainscoting, and built a desk for a staffer. “Everything was going well until the economy just tanked. There really wasn’t much of a market for custom-made furniture.”

So in 2009, Robert became the customer, enrolling at Hinds. Trina enrolled the following year, first at the Raymond campus, then switching to the Utica campus where the early childhood education program is offered.

“I saw him doing it and said, ‘I can do that, too,’” she said and laughed, acknowledging that a strong element of competitiveness drives them both. “I thought I could go back and do something with children,” drawing upon her experience.

Initially, because of her entrance test scores, Trina said she was required to take remedial courses in reading and writing.

“She started from scratch,” Robert said.

“But I finished them all in one semester and went on to mainstream classes,” she added. She also began volunteering 10 hours a week at the Gertrude Ellis Head Start Program in Byram and working with peer educators, a student-mentoring group.

“My ultimate goal is to get a degree in family services, with a minor in early childhood education,” she said. “I’m really interested in working with children and their families.”

Robert said he hopes to enroll in JSU’s engineering program.

“You should never give up on going to school,” Trina said. “I went from taking remedial classes to being an All Academic and being awarded three of the highest honors you can get. With determination you can do it, but you have to put your mind to it.”